


in my dreams, i'm to blame

by nahco3



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, LA era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahco3/pseuds/nahco3
Summary: Turns out, Tommy’s not doing okay.





	in my dreams, i'm to blame

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Don't Take the Money" by Bleachers. 
> 
> standard disclaimer: this fic is just a product of my imagination and in no way real, please please don't share this fic with anyone mentioned in it!

The hills are on fire, plumes of smoke smudging the sky and dyeing the sunsets blood-red. September in LA is too hot, the fog burned off for good, the hills baked golden and on the verge of combustion. Tommy's having nightmares again, wakes up to the sheats sweat-soaked, heart pounding. Jon’s asleep next to him, in a well-worn t-shirt and boxers, drooling onto his pillow. Tommy reaches out carefully, just to touch the soft feathered edges of his curls, rests his little finger against the smooth skin of Jon’s upper arm. It’s too hot to do more than that, but Tommy’s heart’s pounding, looking for some kind of reassurance he’s never been able to find. 

–

They’re out with Favs and Emily at some horrible WeHo bar where half the cars cost more than a year at Kenyon, white marble bars and beautiful, artificial people. Tommy hasn’t been able to follow the conversation between Favs and Jon; some impenetrable argument they’d been having all week, on and off, in the ads and between takes, on Twitter, pausing it and then re-starting it whenever the silences Tommy leaves get too long. 

“I’m just saying,” Jon says, “that if three people have been friends for the majority of their adult lives, you would think they might owe their friends insight into their decision-making process about _major life changes_.” Jon’s voice gets louder and higher (gets gayer) as he goes on.

Favs gives Tommy a concerned look, like Tommy can’t handle Jon and him fighting. Maybe he can’t. 

“Not everyone says everything they’re thinking, all the time,” Favs says, placidly, his left hand resting easily over Emily’s, their fingers intertwined. Jon is giving them both a dark look. 

“Which is the fucking problem, you repressed Masshole jerk-off, god, I swear –” He cuts off his rant and smiles sweetly at the bartender, taking another drink from him. “You’re my hero,” Jon says, leaning in just for a second, so their fingers brush as he takes the glass.

Tommy has been drinking too much: whiskey neat, his dad’s drink. He digs his thumbnail into his wrist, under his watch band, trying to make himself pay attention again. There’s a fog between him and everything else, his body and his emotions, the burn of the whiskey and the warmth of Jon next to him, the jealousy that he knows should rise in his chest watching Jon flirt with someone else, the pale half-moons his nails bit into his wrist. 

After his parents’ divorce, his mom had made him go to therapy. She’d driven him there every other Saturday morning and his dad had picked him up afterwards. None of them ever talked about it. It stopped when he went to college. The therapist told him once that sometimes people shut down their emotions, when they were too hard to feel. He’s been thinking about that a lot lately. 

Emily and Favs leave the bar early. 

“Your new house is too far away,” Jon says, petty.

“Night, Tommy,” Emily says, kissing him on the cheek.

“Shut up, Lovett,” Favs says, and claps Tommy on the shoulder, the way he only did when he’s worrying, which annoys Tommy vaguely. 

“I’m just saying moving for a better school district is the first step to complaining about how much you pay in taxes and voting Republican for _economic reasons_ you crypto-fascist,” Jon spits, digging a piece of peach out of his sangria glass, which ruins the effect.

“Good luck with him,” Favs says, signing the check and following Emily out, his hand low on her back. 

“Homophobic,” Jon says, rolling his eyes. 

Tommy shrugs and finishes his whiskey. He rolls the glass between his fingers, feeling the condensation. 

“Want to get out of here?” he asks, because he knows that’s what Jon wants him to say, because it’s what he should want, did want. 

Jon gives him a speculative up and down look, chewing on his straw, that stupid combination of ridiculous and sexy that does something to Tommy every time, after years, even through this fog, through everything. 

“Sure, Vietor,” he says, slapping down his credit card, the one with Pundit’s face on it, looking up at Tommy like a challenge. 

They take a Lyft back to Jon’s, knees pressed to each other, Jon on Twitter and laughing at his own jokes, like he always does. Tommy pulls out his phone too, compulsive. His feed is talking about something he doesn’t understand, past anger and fear and already onto dark jokes. He scrolls back for context, heart rate speeding up as he did. He’d muted his text notifications for the night, and he feels blind-sided, vaguely nauseous, drunk and in a strange car.

“What’s happening?” he asks Jon.

“Some tweet Trump made and deleted,” Jon says. “You know what makes me crazy, on top of everything else? He doesn’t even have the courage of his fucking garbage convictions. Some of us never delete our tweets even when our best friends in the whole world don’t like them. _Some_ of us stand by them.”

“Sorry,” Tommy says, trying to find a screenshot of the deleted tweet and scrap and re-make his plan for his Pod Save the World interview and also remember what tweet of Jon’s he forget to like. “I’ve been busy actually running a business and making two podcasts, instead of picking fucking fights with Jon Favreau.” 

There’s a beat of silence, too long. The driver clears his throat awkwardly in the silence. Tommy feels his heart like stone in his chest. Jon looks at him, barely lit by the deep gold of the streetlights and the pale light of his phone screen. His eyes are shadowed, the bags under them exaggerated. He looks as tired as Tommy. 

“Sorry,” Tommy says, again, chest heavy, everything landing on him at once.

“We’re here,” the driver says, suddenly. “Have a good night.” Jon get out of the car silently: he loves making a scene, but hates to have real fights in public. Tommy follows. Jon’s sprinklers are on, the warm air and the flowers and the smudge of smoke in the air mixing with the smell of wet grass. 

“I should head home,” Tommy says, hands in his pockets.

“It was the Ivanka tweet,” Jon says, turning to face him.

“I thought that was kind of misogynistic,” Tommy says, his stupid mouth moving on its own. 

“Come in,” Jon says, “And show me how much you respect women.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Tommy says, hands in his pockets. He wants to crawl inside Jon and never come out, curl up in the messy darkness of his house, his unmade bed, bury his face in Jon’s neck and hold him too tight. He wants to go home, to a bedroom that doesn’t exist anymore, a twin bed with Spider-man sheets and glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling, his dad’s tired voice reading to him until he fell back asleep. 

“For fuck’s sake, Tommy,” Jon says. “Come inside.” 

“At least since Favs moved he can’t watch this whole fight from his kitchen window,” Tommy says, apparently unwilling to let himself have one fucking unblemished thing, even for a second.

“Stop talking about Favs, god,” Jon yells. 

“I will when you do,” Tommy says.

“I haven’t mentioned him once, Jesus shitting Christ Tommy, maybe you’re thinking of yourself.” 

Tommy shuts up, before he says something he'll hate himself forever for.

“Not everything I think and feel is about you, you insane control freak. I can be sad my best friends are moving away and not – god. Just come the fuck inside and stop looking like that.” 

Tommy lets out a shaking breath. “Okay.” 

“Fine!” Jon says, as if he hadn’t won the fight, and unlocks the door. 

– 

Tommy drinks a glass of water standing over the sink while Jon lets Pundit out, talking to her in the lilting voice he only uses with her, a step away from baby talk. There are dishes in the sink, so he does them, his hands still shaking a little. He feels drunker than he did at the bar. A wine glass slips out of his hands, shattering in the sink. 

“Shit.” He reaches down to clean up but the shards mix with the water so he can’t tell where one ends and the other begins, cuts himself on an unexpected edge.

“God, Tommy,” Jon says, coming into the kitchen. “What did you do now?”

Tommy holds up his hand. It isn’t a bad cut, just oozing. Some of the blood mixes with the water on his hands and runs over his wrist, soaking into the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt. Jon tuts, grabbing some paper towel and wiping Tommy off, tracing his fingers up the veins of Tommy’s forearm carefully. 

It always surprises Tommy how quickly Jon can change moods. He doesn’t forget, ever, comes back to the threads of old grudges and jokes years later, but he picks them up and puts them down like they’re books he’s thinking about reading, wears his emotions lightly and easily for the most part. Not like Tommy. 

“Hold this while I go get the first aid kit,” Jon says, taking Tommy’s other hand and curling it around the paper towel pressed over the cut, as though Tommy can’t be trusted to do it on his own. 

“You have a first aid kit?” Tommy asks, because it seemed like something he would say. 

Jon flicks him off, reaching into a high cabinet and pulling the kit out. “I change my own lightbulbs too,” he says, pulling out a Band-Aid. “And contribute to my 401k and everything.” 

“I know,” Tommy says, too soft, dropping the bit too soon. Jon isn’t who he was in DC – none of them are: Favs married and sharper, angrier; Jon settled into himself, at ease in a way he never was before, and Tommy – well. Turns out, Tommy’s not doing okay. Turns out the problem was never the NSC or Katie or his dad, wasn’t the horrible tangle of what he feels for Jon, isn’t Trump either. Just a fault line pushing up hills, ready to rattle everything apart for no good reason. 

Jon takes Tommy’s finger into his mouth, soft and plush, running his tongue along the underside and sucking gently. He looks up at Tommy through his eyelashes, eyes deliberately big, letting Tommy’s finger rest on the hot edge of his lips. Tommy feels it all as if through a pane of glass, like it’s happening to someone else. 

“There,” Jon says, pulling Tommy’s finger out of his mouth. “All clean.”

“Probably dirtier,” Tommy says, gripping the counter with his other hand to keep himself upright. 

Jon gives a lascivious wink and wraps a Band-Aid around Tommy’s finger. 

“Want to watch SportsCenter?” Jon asks, kissing Tommy’s finger with an exaggerated smack. 

“Or we could have sex,” Tommy says, leaning down to kiss him, something in his chest releasing fractionally.

–

“Sorry,” Tommy says, his forehead pressed against Jon’s. They’re both half-dressed, in Jon’s bed, Tommy’s thigh pressed tight between Jon’s so that Jon can rock against him. Jon’s lips are bitten dark, his eyes just a little hazy. Tommy’s holding Jon’s arms above his head, one of his hands easily spanning Jon’s wrists. There are plum-colored bruises forming on the inside of Jon’s arms, from Tommy’s mouth. 

“What,” Jon says, rocking his hips up to meet Tommy’s thigh. 

“I don’t think I can,” Tommy says, rolling off of Jon. Jon makes a little huffing sound and turns towards Tommy, chasing his lips for another kiss. Tommy kisses back, open-mouthed, knows he’s being unreasonable and confusing but can’t help himself. 

“Too much whiskey?” Jon asks, pulling back. “Or is little Thomas Vietor the Fifth feeling his age?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Tommy says, numbly. He knows it’s fucked up when he gets in his own way like this, knows it isn’t fair to the person he’s with. He just can’t. 

Jon reaches down for Tommy’s dick, which is hard. “Oh,” Jon says, whatever joke he was going to make dying on his lips, and Tommy pushes away from him. 

“It’s fine,” Tommy says. “I can still go down on you.” 

“Wow, what an offer,” Jon says, rolling onto his back. “Try to sound less like I’m holding a gun to your head, jesus.” 

“I don’t mind,” Tommy says, “seriously Jon, I always want –” 

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Jon says. “Turn off the light, okay?” He reaches over to the bedside table and grabs his phone, back on Twitter already. 

“Okay,” Tommy says, and does. 

–

It’s late morning when Tommy wakes up the last time. He’s alone in bed and has kicked off most of the sheets, the bedroom bright. He stays there for a while anyway, half-hoping he’ll fall back asleep so he won’t have to get out of bed, or think, or feel anything. 

Finally giving up, he grabs his phone. He opens Twitter and searches for Jon’s handle. Jon must have gotten up early, he’s had time to go on a Twitter rant about the lack of good bagels in LA, post two pictures of Pundit, and get into another fight with Favs. 

Tommy shuts the app and reopens it, reads his feed for real. There’s nothing good. He likes Jon’s tweets from this morning, and then, after thinking about it more, likes Favs’ tweets too. 

“Get your ass off Twitter and get down here,” Jon yells. “I made breakfast.”

Tommy’s chest twists, an uncomfortable mix of fear and longing. He digs through the pile of clothing on Jon’s floor until he finds a t-shirt he left there, and puts on a pair of Jon’s basketball shorts. The back of the shorts are a little tight but better than going downstairs in just his boxers, or in last night’s clothes. He feels the edges of a headache, maybe a hangover, maybe just from stress. His jaw hurts; he must have been clenching it overnight again.

“Thomas, hurry the fuck up,” Jon yells. 

“Coming,” Tommy yells back, putting his watch on and grabbing his phone. He steps out onto the landing and sees Pundit waiting for him, wagging her tail and smiling up at him. 

“Hey girl,” Tommy says, scooping her up. “How are you?” 

She kisses him, squirming in his arms until he gets a good grip on her, holding her like a baby, with her little head resting on his shoulder. Only then does he have the courage to head downstairs. 

“So what’s for breakfast?” he asks, coming into the kitchen. 

“Well,” Jon says, “I wanted bagels, but we live in a carb-less hellscape so you can have Trader Joe’s Vanilla Almond Clusters or the horrible old-person cereal you bought last month, your pick.” 

“Cereal has more sugar in it than you think,” Tommy says, putting Pundit down and getting himself a bowl. “Also, you have a liberal definition of ‘made breakfast.’”

“Haven’t you heard from the kids on Twitter,” Jon says, handing Tommy a cup of lukewarm coffee, “Liberals are bad; we say ‘leftist’ now.” 

“If you had a leftist definition of making breakfast that would imply you and the comrades made me a communal breakfast on the kibbutz,” Tommy says. 

“First of all, I’d be great on a kibbutz,” Jon says. “Very popular in the fields, probably. Second of all, I said I would provide breakfast and breakfast is here. One hundred percent factual statement.” 

“Thank you for breakfast, Jonathan,” Tommy says. He’s out of his depth here. The first time he spent the night with Katie without having sex with her felt even more intimate than sex could possibly have been. It felt adult; it felt like the rest of their lives. Now Tommy is an adult and he knows the rest of his life, the rest of anyone’s life, isn’t any kind of promise. 

“You’re welcome,” Jon says, sitting down across from him and starting on his second bowl of cereal. He looks down at the bowl and then back up at Tommy. 

“Sleep okay?” he asks, brightly, and something in his tone makes Tommy flinch. 

“Yeah, fine,” Tommy says, glad he has one hand under the table, where Jon can’t see it clench. 

“You woke me up a couple of times,” Jon says, “and unless you have very weird sex dreams –”

“It’s fine,” Tommy interrupts. “It happens.” He’s having trouble swallowing. 

“This isn’t the first time,” Jon says, dropping the innocent act and getting a mulish look on his face. “Obviously you won’t tell me what the fuck is going on, which is fine, but you should talk to someone.”

“Is this an intervention?” Tommy asks, fear rising fast in his chest, flipping over to anger.

“No, Favs would never forgive me if I did that without him,” Jon says. 

“Fuck you,” Tommy says. His hands are unsteady so he digs his nails into the meat of his forearms.

“Jesus Christ,” Jon says, mouth full of cereal. “You want to just pretend this shit is normal, Tommy?”

“I'm fucking fine, Lovett,” Tommy says, and Jon starts.

“Wow, sorry for worrying about my – my fucking business partner,” Jon says, and that's it. 

“Business partner?” Tommy says, putting his hands flat on the table. Jon is looking at him, cheeks a little red, a hickey from last night just visible below the sleeve of his t-shirt on the pale soft underside of his bicep. “That’s what I am, huh?” 

“Tommy – ” Jon begins, but by then Tommy’s around the table, pulling Jon up and kissing him, hands sliding down his back, feeling the firmness of him, the warmth. Touching Jon always puts some part of Tommy at ease, the half-wild part of him that doesn’t believe in anything it can’t touch. He slides his hands inside Jon’s sweatpants to grab his ass. 

“Tommy,” Jon says. Tommy makes an inquisitive noise into the curve of Jon’s neck. 

“Tommy,” Jon says again, voice serious, and Tommy pulls his hands away from Jon and steps back until he hits the counter. 

“Jon?” Tommy asks. He doesn’t know what he’s thinking, his thoughts swirling too fast to put a name to any of them. 

Jon meets Tommy’s eyes, his arms folded across his chest, curls still a mess. “I didn’t get out of seven-year relationship where we fucked instead of talking about shit to start doing it all over again. I’m thirty-five. I have a mortgage and a dog. Make up your mind, Tommy.” 

Tommy feels like his blood has been replaced by ice water, starting in his heart and working its way outward, taking the breath from his lungs, killing him. He stands, suspended, looking at Jon in the warm morning light of his kitchen for a second and then he runs. 

–

He doesn’t stop until he gets home, pulls the spare key out from its hiding place and lets himself in. Even then, he can’t sit down, can’t stop pacing, starting to clean his kitchen and then stopping because his breath catches in his throat and he can’t focus. 

He didn't think it was possible to feel this much for this long. He always assumed that eventually what he felt for Jon would burn itself out, until it was just an ember lodged somewhere in him that flared only dimly and rarely. And maybe it would have, eventually. Maybe he could have been happy in San Francisco, in another life, where everything was fine and he hadn’t been so fucking wrong about the election and about everything: Maybe then he’d be settled down somewhere with a dog and a baby and a partner. 

But he’d been wrong, about everything, and everything had been pulled out from under him again, like last time, when he’d never thought about how one day everyone he loved would die or leave him, until it had started to happen. 

He wants Jon. But he doesn’t know if he can survive having him, for real, and then losing him. He’s lost so many things that it sometimes feels like if he has to lose one more he’ll fall apart. 

–

Tommy likes to get to work early, before anyone else. Especially now that they have more people working for them, more responsibilities and reminders that they aren’t just three friends fucking around anymore and he likes the quiet half hour before everyone else shows up. 

That Monday morning he’s still in a haze, walks to work watching the city wake up, the sky a sick shade of copper, tang of smoke and smog mixed. The lollipop palms look alien against the sky, relics of a summer that won’t die, that’s metastasized into a strange and unrecognizable fall. 

He fumbles his key in the lock, thoughts chasing themselves and going nowhere good. It feels like there’s a weight inside his shoulders, like every movement takes more effort. He’s nearly to their office before he registers their voices. 

“I told you not to push it,” Favs sounds tired. “You don’t know what he gets like.”

“Fuck you,” Jon says, really angry. “I lived with him. I’m fucking him. You think I don’t know how he’s doing?” Everything in Tommy goes cold. Some part of him always thought that Favs and Jon never talked about him when he wasn’t there, not the way he and Favs talk endlessly about Jon, the way Jon and him skirt carefully around Favs sometimes. 

“You weren’t there in ‘08 and you weren’t there after –” and thank god Jon interrupts just then, because Tommy doesn’t want to know what Favs thinks of him for how he was by the end of his time in the White House. He couldn’t bear knowing. 

“How long are you going to punish me for coming late and leaving early, fucking Christ, Jon. I’m sorry I’m not a fucking Obama lifer and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for Tommy fucking losing it but I have to say, I’m not too impressed with this Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell bullshit. You think if we just go to enough happy hours and watch some fucking Pats games it’ll all work out?” 

“No,” Favs says, “but I think this is a situation that requires some tact, and you’re not the most careful person, especially with Tommy.” It makes Tommy suck in sharp breath. 

“Fuck you,” Jon says. “You have no – How many goddamn times do I have to tell you this isn’t 2011?” Tommy stands there, unable to go back and unable to step forward, frozen. 

“You need to act like it,” Favs says.

“I am, god,” Jon says. “What do you think all of this is about? I’m trying to be his fucking partner and he won’t fucking let me.” Jon’s crying now, Tommy can tell from the tremor in his voice, and it twists something inside Tommy so horribly, the kind of piercing pain he can feel through any numbness, the kind of pain that could wake the dead. It compels him forward.

“Stop hugging me,” Jon says, voice muffled now. Favs laughs his deep, warm laugh.

“No way, buddy,” Favs says, and then Tommy’s standing in the doorway. 

Favs notices first, because Jon has his face pressed into Favs’ chest. 

“Uh, hey Tommy,” he says, and Tommy can see every muscle in Jon go tense as he pushes himself out of Favs’ arms. He has snot dripping down his nose and he’s left a wet smudge on Favs’ shirt. His hair is a mess and he’s wearing his glasses, which he only does when he’s been up all night wearing his contacts. He looks terrible. 

“Tommy,” Jon says. “Perfect.” 

“Sorry,” Tommy says, awkwardly grabbing the strap to his messenger bag. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, or his body. God knows what he looks like. 

“Can we have the room?” Jon says, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. 

“Yeah, sure, sorry,” Tommy says, backing up. 

“You idiot,” Jon says, affectionately, as Favs says, “Obviously me, not you, Tommy.” 

“Oh,” Tommy says, “right.” Favs walks out of the room, clapping Tommy on the shoulder as he goes, looking back over his shoulder to share a look with Jon. 

“So how much of that did you hear?” Jon asks, sitting on a desk, his legs off the floor. He’s so small; he occupies so much space in Tommy’s mind, it scares the shit out of Tommy every time he realizes. Tommy’s hands span his neck, could snap his wrists.

“Enough,” Tommy says. 

“Right,” Jon says. The bags under his eyes are bigger than they were on Saturday night, dark against his pale skin. He pulls his knees up into his chest and looks at Tommy, defiant. He makes Tommy feel so much, so many uncontainable and inexpressible things: emotions too big for words or gestures, an animal desire to hold him and never let him go, never let anything hurt him. 

But Tommy can’t do that: can’t go back in time and beat the shit out of everyone who touched Jon wrong, can’t stop whatever catastrophes are racing towards them both, can’t even keep his idiotic bullshit from leaking out of his head and hurting Jon anymore. He’d trade his life for Jon’s but that’s not a choice anyone gets to make. 

They look at each other for a long time. 

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says. “I know it’s not. I’m not.” He stops. He talks for a living but he can’t put together a simple declarative sentence about this, what the fuck.

“I don’t care,” Jon says. “I mean, obviously I care because.” He takes a deep breath in and then releases it. “I love you, but I don’t care that you get like this, except you won’t fucking talk about it.” 

Tommy stands there, hands still stupidly clutching the strap of his bag. It’s an unbelievable feeling. The opposite of pictures of dead children in a city where Obama won’t send aid, of finding another man’s shirt in the laundry he’s sorting, a 2 am phone call from his step-mother. It’s 2008: adrenaline and hope, warmth and tension all mixed up. 

“Jon,” he says, and staggers forward. 

“I swear to god you cannot kiss me right now, Tommy,” Jon says, reaching up and wrapping his arms around Tommy’s neck. He tilts his head, considering.

“Well, maybe once,” Jon says, and closes the distance between them. Tommy leans into him, hands on Jon’s shoulders, biting at Jon’s lower lip just a little, because he wants to, because he loves him. Their foreheads press together and Jon’s glasses press against the bridge of Tommy’s nose.

“Nerd,” Tommy says, pulling back slightly and pushing Jon’s glasses back up his nose.

“Shut up,” Jon says, softly. He brings his hands up and runs them through Tommy’s hair. “I’m serious,” he says, in the same quiet voice. “You have to deal with your shit.” 

“I know,” Tommy says, trying to focus on the patterns Jon’s tracing onto the back of his neck, not being afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s fine. Jon’s fine. “I just don’t want to.” He shuts his eyes. It’s easier. “Lose you.”

Jon’s hands stop, and he goes very still around Tommy. “Tommy. Who knows what the fuck is going to happen, you know? It’s 2017. But you have to try. We have to – I’m not going to not try.” 

“Yeah,” Tommy says, mouth dry, heart pounding. He wishes he could name what he’s feeling. He keeps his eyes closed. 

“You gotta try too though, bud,” Jon says, very quietly. “Okay?” 

Tommy nods, trusting that Jon will feel it, and he must because his hand starts moving again, up and down Tommy’s neck and then down to his back. After a minute he hears footsteps, and Favs coming in and sitting down at his desk, the clatter of his keyboard. Favs and Jon are probably having a silent conversation about Tommy right now. Tommy can’t bring himself to care, every feeling falling away, shame and fear and happiness dropping back until all he feels is Jon’s touch, the rise and fall of Jon’s chest and his own unsteady heart.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to [threeturn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/threeturn/pseuds/threeturn) for making everything I write smarter and better and more emotionally coherent, to [veryspecificfantasies](https://veryspecificfantasies.tumblr.com) for helping me answer important questions like "would Lovett have band aids" and to [Lee](http://lilah80.tumblr.com) for encouragement and fixing my em-dashes. 
> 
> thanks also 2 all of you for being such joys in my life and sorry for my protracted absence(s) from fandom. xoxo.
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](https://baking-soda.tumblr.com).


End file.
